WASHINGTON
— Those nutrition labels on the back of food packages may soon become easier to
read.

The
Food and Drug Administration says knowledge about nutrition has evolved over the
last 20 years, and the labels need to reflect that.

As
the agency considers revisions, nutritionists and other health experts have
their own wish list of desired changes.

The
number of calories should be more prominent, they say, and the amount of added
sugar and percentage of whole wheat in the food should be included. They also
want more clarity on how serving sizes are defined.

“There’s
a feeling that nutrition labels haven’t been as effective as they should be,”
says Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “When
you look at the label, there are roughly two dozen numbers of substances that
people aren’t intuitively familiar with.”

For
example, he says, most of the nutrients are listed in grams, the metric
system’s basic unit of mass. Jacobson says people don’t really understand what
a gram is.

Michael
Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods, says 20 years ago “there was a
big focus on fat, and fat undifferentiated.” Since then, health providers have
focused more on calories and warned people away from saturated and trans fats
more than all fats. Trans fats were separated out on the label in 2006.

The
nutrition facts label “is now 20 years old, the food environment has changed
and our dietary guidance has changed,” says Taylor, who was at the agency in
the early 1990s when the FDA first introduced the label at the behest of
Congress. “It’s important to keep this updated so what is iconic doesn’t become
a relic.”

The
FDA has sent guidelines for the new labels to the White House, but Taylor would
not estimate when they might be released. The FDA has been working on the issue
for a decade, he said.

There’s
evidence that more people are reading the labels in recent years.

According
to an Agriculture Department study released this month, a greater percentage of
adults reported using the nutrition facts panel and other claims on food
packages “always or most of the time” in 2009 and 2010 compared with two years
earlier.

The
USDA study said 42 percent of working adults used the panel always or most of
the time in 2009 and 2010, while older adults used it 57 percent of the time
during that period.

One
expected change in the label is to make the calorie listing more prominent, and
Regina Hildwine of the Grocery Manufacturers Association said that could be
useful to consumers. Her group represents the nation’s largest food companies.

Hildwine
said FDA also has suggested that it may be appropriate to remove the “calories
from fat” declaration on the label.

It’s
not yet clear what other changes the FDA could decide on. Nutrition advocates
are hoping the agency adds a line for sugars and syrups that are not naturally
occurring in foods and drinks and are added when they are processed or
prepared. Right now, some sugars are listed separately among the ingredients
and some are not.

It
may be difficult for the FDA to figure out how to calculate added sugars,
however. Food manufacturers are adding naturally occurring sugars to their
products so they can label them as natural — but the nutrition content is no
different.

Other
suggestions from health advocates:

—
Add the percentage of whole wheat to the label. Many manufacturers will label
products “whole wheat” when there is really only a small percentage of it in
the food.

—
Clearer measurements. Jacobson of CSPI and others have suggested that the FDA
use teaspoons instead of grams on the label, since consumers can envision a
teaspoon.

—
Serving sizes that make sense. There’s no easy answer, but health experts say
that single-size servings that are clearly meant to be eaten in one sitting
will often list two or three servings on the label, making the calorie and
other nutrient information deceptive. FDA said last year that it may add
another column to the labels, listing nutrition information per serving and per
container. The agency may also adjust recommended serving sizes for some foods.

—
Package-front labeling. Beyond the panel on the back, nutrition experts have
pushed for labels on the package front for certain nutrients so consumers can
see them more easily. The FDA said several years ago it would issue guidelines
for front of pack labeling, but later said it would hold off to see if the
industry could create its own labels.

Tracy
Fox, a Washington-based nutrition consultant, says clearer information is
needed to balance the billions of dollars a year that the food industry spends
on food marketing.

“There’s
a lot of information there, it’s messy,” she says. “There may be a way to call
out certain things and put them in context.”